And so another 9/11 comes and goes, and so I am now officially both old and older.

But it does not feel much different, and so I reserve any more involved thoughts for when additional time may permit.

Theme for today: The total desolation of the AC.

1. No, I do not think you do understand what I am telling you.

2. It would be a good idea to send someone who has been here before; since no fewer than 9 servicepeople on no fewer than 13 separate visits have done so, this should not be difficult.

3. Only because if I did, you would have a pile of dead employees and blood lapping at your walls.

Theme for today: Somewhere in the middle of a conversation.

1. As you can see, I have purchased a piñata in the shape of a happy sun.

2. Such a cantankerous eggplant would have that effect on anyone.

3. I could not believe it either, but I suppose it must be true.

Theme for today:  Subject lines from spam received.

1. If we had never started we would not have reached the end.

2. Besides, people had a right to know what they faced.

3.  Deep in their forest the trees are very great.

In exactly 12 hours, I will lock myself in my house and commence the love that is Blogathon 2007. This year I'll spend the 24 hours introducing you to the mission, history, people, and success of Blue Gargoyle, an adult and family literacy in Hyde Park that faces the challenges of endemic generational poverty, inadequate facilities, oversubscribed classes, and limited resources with grace, dedication, and creativity.

I've spent a few days over the last month talking to the students, staff, and volunteers at Blue Gargoyle. It is my goal to raise at least $2500 for them over the course of the 'thon. As of this post we have $2174 committed -- it was just over $2000 when I visited them earlier this week, and their amazement and gratitude for the support was incredible. The stories they told me about their experiences with literacy were funny, sad, moving, horrific, and inspirational, often all at the same time.

Want to know more? Join me over at the blog starting at 8am CST tomorrow to read the interviews, see the photos, and get to know about Blue Gargoyle. And, if you possibly can, please consider sponsoring me towards the total. It is superlatively easy to do: just make your pledge online or leave a comment on this entry with the amount you'd like to contribute. Tell your friends! Spread the word! If you can read this entry, consider how lucky you are. And with that in mind, please pledge what you can to make it possible for others to do the same.

Two ways in which life could, should one desire to improve it, be improved.

1. Upon driving an hour to one's parents' house to pick up their mail while they are out of town for a week and noticing that a faucet at the side of the house is spewing water down the side stairs to a pool outside the basement landing, one could decide that the risk of flooding posed by this arrangement outweighs the risk of disturbing whatever delicate ecosystem said arrangement, presuming it was indeed purposely arranged and not merely an accident of burst pipes, entailed;

2. In the many months leading up to this evening, one could have carefully made friends with large numbers of non-working, gym-loving, heat-oblivious people, so that the receipt of an email an hour ago informing one that Monday's book pickup will consist of 150 boxes and that no helpers are available would not cause cardiac shutdown, although one is permitted to point out that even if such friendmaking had been achieved, the 91-degree thunderstorm forecast for Monday would still be terrifying.

How sad that neither of these helpful solutions occurred to me in time.

I am, I think, in trouble.

There is probably some kind of balancing logic to the fact that, mere hours before going to pick up and start wearing my glasses, I have scratched my left cornea with a wire-bristled hairbrush and now cannot see a damn thing other than watery mist.

I so rock.

Things, in no particular order, that I would really like to do or get done around the house this summer, with a few already-accomplished ones thrown into the list to give me the illusion of making progress.

- Get canopy installed over bed
- Clean out front yard, get tree replaced, and recontour everything
- Make moss grow in back yard (expert help of MDM required)
- Get hammock for back yard  done!
- Plant real flowers in deck pots
- Fix table on deck
- Paint corner cabinet and put in dining room  done!
- Add decorative stenciling to corner cabinet in dining room (oh man, you never satisfied)
- Figure out mural or painting for bedroom wall
- Set up puzzle table in library
- Install additional lights in library and replace bulbs in existing ones
- Fix vase in living room
- Move some books into living room (hahaha)
- Rip out counters in basement
- Repaint newly counterless room in basement
- Install bed and other bedroom furnishings in newly repainted room in basement
- Move printer, router, and other related items into office
- Clean out and reorganize kitchen cupboards and closet
- Install funky twisted colorful lighting in living room
- Clean out and reorganize garage
- Weed out bedroom closets
- Install prism in bathroom skylight
- Replace plants in bathroom
- Drink fizzy lemonade in sunshine on deck
- Have fun and enjoy :)

Let us hope it is a long, long, long summer.

Edit: Ivyluna is absolutely correct! List amended. :)

I resolved to do it in January, put off doing it all spring, and have finally bowed to reality and done it. Glasses for me!

And, although the change was made after this photo, shortened and newly-auburn hair into the bargain.

It is amazing how pretty the world is when you can actually see what is going on in it, and also how much time you have to look when your hair can dry all by itself. ;)

Because it was not, despite predictions, actually snowing today, we went to the dog park. It is still the season when only intrepid people brave the 44 acres of Prairie Wolf, and those who are there dress appropriately: rubber boots, hooded sweatshirts, heavy gloves. In a few months the parking lot will be jammed and the picnic tables will be occupied and there will be dogs everywhere, running in the field and tearing up the path and splashing in the pond and chasing each other with howls and barks and roos of joy. But today we saw only ten or so other dogs and all of them ignored us, bent on their own scent trails through the wilderness and wanting nothing to do with a small beagle and his quiet owner.

After an hour or so we came home (by way of the car wash) and took a bath. The scent of the mud, apparently impervious to soap and distinct from its corporeal host, still lingers. The mud of Prairie Wolf is primeval in its squelch and invasive in its smell. Now, typing this in a carpeted library two floors above the buzz and whine of city traffic, the faint and untraceable scent of mud says: you were somewhere else today, somewhere far from all this. You were somewhere where no one knew your name and no one cared, among trees and dry yellow grass and pools of slime. You were somewhere natural and anonymous and you can go back again, whenever you like, with your best and most unconditionally adoring friend.

I bought a Prairie Wolf season pass today.

Joy in Mudville, indeed.

"I live here," says the last entry. Like most statements, it is true and false. Some of me lives at the link: years of history, pages of quotes, lists of trivia. But the entries have been few and far between for years now, sputtering to a stop, winding through a desert with occasional forlorn 'post soon' signs that turn out to be merely mirage. I do not live at the writes any longer. The thought of writing there -- finding each quote, hand-coding each entry, updating six pages at the end of each month and starting over -- is too onerous. I would rather write nothing than go through that routine, and so that is what I have done for far too long.

This is different, this LJ. I feel no pressure here. Here I can talk about nonsense like my hair (professionally cut today for the first time in five years), my dog, my house, my game. The format is free and the audience can be limited. Those who frequented the writes can be shut out if the mood so takes me, and I need no longer dread my IP logs.

I do not live here, at least not yet.

But I hope to visit frequently, and perhaps someday I will.

I live here.